Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Birdsell Wagons

To my wife’s chagrin, our collection of
century-plus-old vehicles now numbers in the dozens. It’s a tally that’s been fairly fluid over
the years. As with any serious
collecting effort, the ebb and flow of buying, trading, and acquiring different
pieces has gradually grown the group into a unique set of quality
survivors. One of the wagons I picked up
eons ago is a Birdsell with a boot-end box.
I’ve hung onto this one due to its completeness and overall
condition. It’s a heavy rascal, as we
found out when we first pulled it out of a barn in Ohio. It’s still in its ‘as-found’ condition.

Based on a number of design features on
the box and running gear, the wagon was most likely built around or just prior
to the turn-of-the-twentieth-century. It
was made in South Bend, Indiana. Similar
to Detroit’s connection to several major automobile companies, the city of
South Bend was once home to a number of notable wagon manufacturers. In fact, major brands like Winkler,
Coquillard, South Bend, and Studebaker all called this city in north-central Indiana ‘home.’

Like
most wagon makers with extended histories, the look of Birdsell design features, logos, and paint styles evolved over the
years.

John Comly Birdsell started his company in
the mid-1800’s and for years was known as a manufacturer of clover
hullers. Near the end of the Civil War,
Birdsell moved his factory from Monroe County, New York to South Bend to
improve the firm’s access to quality timber, skilled labor, and railroad
facilities. He added farm wagons to his product offerings in 1887 and they
quickly gained national acclaim.
Reinforcing their popular reputation, Birdsell claimed that every piece
of wood was air-dried from 3-5 years.
Early promotional literature also pointed out that the wagons were
“carefully painted by hand (not dipped).”

The
Birdsell Mfg Company built a number of different types of vehicles
including farm, spring, express, and delivery wagons as well as carriages and
buggies.

Like a few other large-scale
manufacturers, Birdsell had its own foundry to produce its skeins (rhymes with
trains). Skeins are the metal thimbles
on the end of the axle on which the wheel hub rests and rolls. Some of the earliest skein sizes that
Birdsell offered included 2 3/4 x 8 ½, 3 x 9, 3 ¼ x 10, and 3 ½ x 11. The first (and smaller) number in these
measurements is a reference to the size opening where the wooden axle enters the hollow 'bell' of the skein. The second number highlights
the length of the skein’s running surface.
Collectively, the numbers point to wagon sizes, hauling capacities, and,
by default, the type of work a particular vehicle might be limited to.

From the start, the company built both
narrow and wide track wagon gears. These
variations not only served different load capacities but were developed for the
specific needs of farmers, ranchers, and freight haulers in different parts of
the country. Initial wheel heights
measured 44 inches in the front and either 52 or 54 inches in the rear. Boxes were sold in 38 and 42-inch widths.

Birdsell
is one of several notable builders that offered a spring seat very similar in
appearance to those used by the Peter Schuttler brand.

According to the first wagon brochures
published by Birdsell, their inaugural axles incorporated a ‘new’ design style. Instead of the wooden axles having a rounded
shape to the top and bottom, as was often the case in the 1880’s and earlier,
the bottom was left squared off so more wood remained for greater support. Makeup of a Birdsell running gear was created
from several different types of wood stock.
While the doubletree, singletree, neck yoke, and axles were generally
made from hickory, many other parts of the gear as well as the spokes, and
felloes were often fashioned from white oak.
Hubs were made from black birch or white oak. Elsewhere in their construction designs,
boxes were made of poplar and box bottoms employed yellow pine.

In addition to clover and alfalfa hullers
as well as two-horse farm wagons in multiple variations, the Birdsell product
line included log wagons, dump carts, one-horse wagons, lumber gears, oil pipe
gears, and spring wagons. In their
earlier years of vehicle manufacture, they also made buggies, carriages, and phaetons along with express and delivery wagons. While the Birdsell facility was considerably smaller than its mega-competitor and city neighbor, Studebaker, the business dwarfed most wood vehicle makers. Reinforcing that point, Birdsell's factory occupied 21 acres of floor space with a
production capacity of 18,000 wagons per year.
Similarly, their wagons and running gears were distributed throughout the United
States and were consistently touted for their strength, durability, light
draft, and quality finish.

This
image shows a variety of early promotional material distributed by the
Birdsell Manufacturing Company.

Like most other wagon brands, Birdsell
transitioned from a widely traveled transportation icon to a more sedentary and
utilitarian piece of farm equipment by the 1920’s. By the early 1930’s, factory repair parts for
these wagons were only available through Kentucky Manufacturing Company with no
parts serviced for the brand by the mid-1940s.

From research to recovery, whether we’re
looking at a national name like Birdsell or a lesser-known local brand, it’s
important to understand the history of particular piece – where and how it was
used, the distinctions of its design, unique accessories, timeframe of manufacture,
and more. All of these elements help us
better appreciate a set of wheels while also preserving and perpetuating
history.

See ya next week!

Please Note: As with each of our blog writings, all imagery and text is copyrighted with All Rights Reserved. The material may not be broadcast, published, rewritten, or redistributed without prior written permission from David E. Sneed, Wheels That Won The West® Archives, LLC

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The Wheels That Won The West® collection spans more than two centuries of horse drawn vehicle manufacture. It contains scarce imagery, specifications, correspondence, promotional literature & other all-but-forgotten historical details of the workings of America’s early western transportation industry. The subject is a huge and virtually untouched aspect of western study; rich with untold stories of personal, corporate & national dreams. Focusing on the heavier farm, freight, ranch, coach, business & military vehicles that built the western frontier of the U.S., our research and articles have been published by the American Chuck Wagon Association, National Stagecoach & Freight Wagon Association, Santa Fe Trail Association, The Carriage Journal, Farm Collector, Driving Digest & Wild West magazines as well as the Wheels That Won The West® website & numerous other traditional and on-line publications.
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